The Seal was drawn by Ambrose Tolland in the winter of 1974 and cut by him as a brass finishing stamp, of the kind a binder uses to tool a cover. That stamp is still used to seal every charter the Guild issues.
The Seal is not an object of reverence. It is a diagram, and like every diagram in the Art it is meant to be read. An Apprentice is asked to draw it freehand from memory before admission, not as a test of draftsmanship, but because a figure drawn is a figure understood.
The double ring
Two circles enclose the whole. The outer is the boundary of the work: the circle traced on the floor of the Hall, the edge of the lamplight, the hour set aside. The inner is the boundary of the worker: the closed mouth and the collected mind. Between the two runs the legend, the name of the Guild above and its motto below. The space between the rings is where the Guild lives: inside the world's edge and outside the self.
The star of seven points
Within the ring stands a star of seven points drawn in a single unbroken line. Its points are the seven planets of the old sky, which the Guild calls the Seven Lamps: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Set around the circle in that order, which is the order of their apparent speed, and joined by the line of the star, they give the order of the days of the week. To follow the line from the Sun is to pass to the Moon, to Mars, to Mercury, to Jupiter, to Venus, to Saturn, and home to the Sun again.
The star therefore holds two orders at once: the order of the heavens around the rim, and the order of human time along the line. It is a reminder that the Art is always worked at a particular hour. The reckoning is explained under Planetary Days and Hours.
The seven points are also the seven grades of the Guild, from the Apprentice under the Moon to the Elder under Saturn. On the Seal every point lies on the same circle. No grade stands nearer the center than another.
The lamp
At the center, within its own small circle, is a lamp with a single flame. It is the first instrument an Apprentice is given and the only one that is never laid aside. It stands for attention: the one thing a practitioner brings to every working, and the one thing no rite can supply. The lines of the star pass around the lamp and do not cross it.
The motto
Opere et Silentio means "by work and by silence." The work is the daily practice and the Record. The silence is of two kinds: the stillness in which the work is done, and the reserve with which a member speaks of the work of others. It has never meant secrecy for its own sake.
Silence is not secrecy. It is the room in which the work can be heard.
The Common Book, Paper 12
Color and use
The Seal is properly shown in gold line on black, the colors of the lamp flame and the unlit Hall. It appears on charters, on the title page of the Common Book, and on the cord worn within the Hall. Members wear no badge or emblem of the Guild in public, and the Seal may not be used on any goods or services offered for sale.